I recently started monitoring my tank on 9/27/15 with the anticipation that my temperature and PH were probably all over the place and not staying consistent. My first thing on the to do list was to get my temperature stable and then move to PH. Temperature was a rather easy task to get stable.
I then moved on the PH. My initial baseline was lower then I wanted to be at so I started doing some research and ran a few tests on the PH. I came to the conclusion that I may have too much C02 in the basement so I moved on to the window test. During the weekend that I left my window in the basement open, my PH improved so I figured at this point, too much C02. Being that we are coming upon winter no way was I going to leave the window open so I decided to run my skimmer intake to the great outdoors. I patched up some tubing that was much larger then the skimmers intake and made a simple carbon filter for the intake port that is now located outside and this greatly improved my PH as you can see from the graphs below.
I am now on the look out for soda lime so that I can build a C02 scrubber.
Here is the graph for the month that shows the setup, baseline, window test and skimmer to outside
[URL="http://www.marinecolorado.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=24582&d=1444243677%5b/IMG"]http://www.marinecolorado.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=24582&d=1444243677[/IMG[/URL]]
This graph shows the 2 days for the window test, open window at day, closed at night
[IMG][URL="http://www.marinecolorado.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=24583&d=1444243688%5b/IMG"]http://www.marinecolorado.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=24583&d=1444243688[/IMG[/URL]]
And lastly this graph, it shows no dramatic PH swings with the skimmer intake outside. Notice the one drop... that is when I brought the skimmer intake inside for a few minutes to tape up a joint.
[IMG][URL="http://www.marinecolorado.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=24581&d=1444243651%5b/IMG"]http://www.marinecolorado.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=24581&d=1444243651[/IMG[/URL]]
I then moved on the PH. My initial baseline was lower then I wanted to be at so I started doing some research and ran a few tests on the PH. I came to the conclusion that I may have too much C02 in the basement so I moved on to the window test. During the weekend that I left my window in the basement open, my PH improved so I figured at this point, too much C02. Being that we are coming upon winter no way was I going to leave the window open so I decided to run my skimmer intake to the great outdoors. I patched up some tubing that was much larger then the skimmers intake and made a simple carbon filter for the intake port that is now located outside and this greatly improved my PH as you can see from the graphs below.
I am now on the look out for soda lime so that I can build a C02 scrubber.
Here is the graph for the month that shows the setup, baseline, window test and skimmer to outside
[URL="http://www.marinecolorado.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=24582&d=1444243677%5b/IMG"]http://www.marinecolorado.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=24582&d=1444243677[/IMG[/URL]]
This graph shows the 2 days for the window test, open window at day, closed at night
[IMG][URL="http://www.marinecolorado.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=24583&d=1444243688%5b/IMG"]http://www.marinecolorado.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=24583&d=1444243688[/IMG[/URL]]
And lastly this graph, it shows no dramatic PH swings with the skimmer intake outside. Notice the one drop... that is when I brought the skimmer intake inside for a few minutes to tape up a joint.
[IMG][URL="http://www.marinecolorado.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=24581&d=1444243651%5b/IMG"]http://www.marinecolorado.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=24581&d=1444243651[/IMG[/URL]]